What Amiga do I buy?

[GeX]

Growing up, I never had an Amiga as they were too expensive.

I saw a port of Stunt Car Racer has been done for the C64; https://bitshifters.github.io/posts/prods/bs-scr-beeb.html

Seeing that, I recognised the game and began looking on YouTube at the various versions of it. As soon as I played the Amiga version, I instantly recognised it. After a quick chat with my brother, I remembered that we'd borrowed an Amiga from the local church youth group one summer - and played that game a lot.

So.. now I want an Amiga - but I'm totally unsure about what's out there, what mods can (or should) be done.

I think I need to a get an Amiga 1200 with a GoTek, or what else should I look at? If I do get a 1200, what mods are often done to them?

 

[almoststew1990]

I'm also quite interested in this whole era of computing but never owned an Amiga. I'm not sure if I want an atari St instead though. I will be following this thread!

 

[J35T3R]

Depends on your plans, would you be looking to mod and upgrade, 1200.

If you just want to play some games a 600 will do the trick.

 

[GeX]

What mods can be done, I've seen co processor cards added that are more powerful than the stock CPU.

I'm very much keen on tinkering and modding, I have various ZX Spectrums - including the Spectrum Next.

 

[Flibster]

Bone stock KS1.3 A500 for the best compatibility.
Amiga 1200 for AGA and pretty decent compatibility.

That said, can't think of anything that I'd want to play that doesn't run on an A1200.

Some games have issues with accelerators or more than 2mb chip ram, but easy to disable them at boot.

I'd definitely go A1200 with an '040 (full version with FPU) and at least 8mb more fast ram. 2nd floppy drive (and/or a gotek floppy emulator).

 

[Armageus]

I'd definitely go A1200 with an '040 (full version with FPU) and at least 8mb more fast ram. 2nd floppy drive (and/or a gotek floppy emulator).

'030 would probably be cheaper and have less compatibility issues (e.g. needing required libraries/setpatch etc). Can't think of anything particularly that needed anything faster (unless you were trying to run PC ports of things like Quake etc)

 

[GeX]

What are '030 and '040? Are they revisions, or sub models?

I have some reading to do I think.

 

[vanpeebles]

500 with a CPU/storage upgrade.

 

[Armageus]

What are '030 and '040? Are they revisions, or sub models?

I have some reading to do I think.

CPU Accelerator cards.

The A500/A600 shipped with a 68000 CPU (also known as 68k)
The A1200 shipped with a 68020 ('020)

The bigger A3000/A4000 amigas shipped with '030 and '040 CPUs as standard


'030/'040/'060 are all faster CPUs

All accelerator cards generally also add some "fast ram" memory expansion

 

[GeX]

woah, these seem more expensive than I expected!

 

[vanpeebles]

You want in at just the wrong time

 

[GeX]

Indeed! I might just watch eBay for a broken ones / check carboots and take a gamble.

 

[mmj_uk]

Amiga 500 is best for game compatibility.

I'm also quite interested in this whole era of computing but never owned an Amiga. I'm not sure if I want an atari St instead though. I will be following this thread!

Next question.

 

[naefeart]

I wouldn't bother with the ST, it's the inferior platform. Saying that, most developers coded for the lowest common denominator i.e. They coded most of their games for the ST and then simply ported it to the Amiga. Thus many amiga games are identical to the ST version, albeit often with better music. Shame.

 

[JonnyT]

I'd try and get a A1200 if you can. Nearly everything is compatible, and you can get a Kick1.3 disk to (warm) boot it with a Kickstart 1.3 ROM for even better compatibility. The performance increase of even the stock A1200 is significant, especially with some Fast RAM; I remember firing up F1GP on the A1200 for the first time after coming from a ECS A500, and was amazed that it now ran smoothly at full detail, whereas it would 'chug' ever so slightly on the A500. Plus you can add a CF-IDE card to the on-board interface, and Workbench 2/3 is MUCH better than 1.3...

It's funny hearing ST fans trying to claim that the platform was superior; I've managed to persuade a couple of friends who are die-hard ST fans that the Amiga was superior - YouTube certainly helps! The STe was very close, but too little too late to catch up...

 

[GeX]

Why KS 1.3, and why does it need a boot disk - can't it just boot the ROM? Hmm..

There seems to be a lot of modern accelerator cards that offer a lot via an onboard FPGA. A 500 with a Wicher 500i EX seems like it'd be a bit of beast?

 

[Flibster]

Why KS 1.3, and why does it need a boot disk - can't it just boot the ROM? Hmm..

There seems to be a lot of modern accelerator cards that offer a lot via an onboard FPGA. A 500 with a Wicher 500i EX seems like it'd be a bit of beast?

As standard, the A1200 has KS3.0 or the last models KS3.1. There are some small incompatibilities, mainly with little hacks that were used by the game coders. They don't work with KS3.x. You can get a boot disk which loads KS1.3 instead, combine that with disabling various features upon boot (by holding down both mouse buttons) can improve it.

Can't say anything about the Wicher 500i, not used one.

 

[Firestar_3x]

The STe was very close, but too little too late to catch up...

Yep i still have the same STe from childhood, shame more wasn't coded for it.

 

[SLIPdiggers]

Do Anyone's Amiga floppy disks still work? I installed a flash memory module into my amiga 1200, to get round the data degradation of old floppy disks.

 

[GeX]

Gotek floppy emulators seem to be the way to go now.
I've got one for my retro PCs, just ordered an OLED screen, rotary encoder and speaker for it